Cox Clobbers Competitor's Customers

If you're one of those lucky folks who has a real choice in broadband providers, savor the moment while you can. As one reluctant Cox customer just discovered, the "last mile" cable and/or phone monopolists aren't going to give up their stranglehold easily. "Cox Cable bought the local CableAmerica company in the Phoenix area this last summer," the reader wrote. "Cox was not buying new territory, as the vast majo

If you're one of those lucky folks who has a real choice in broadband providers, savor the moment while you can. As one reluctant Cox customer just discovered, the "last mile" cable and/or phone monopolists aren't going to give up their stranglehold easily.

"Cox Cable bought the local CableAmerica company in the Phoenix area this last summer," the reader wrote. "Cox was not buying new territory, as the vast majority of CableAmerica customers here also had Cox available and had made a decision to NOT buy Cox's services. As far as I know, there were no public hearings, no advanced notices, etc. -- it was just announced as a done deal. We had just been sold to the evil empire and that was it. Sigh."

The reader, who had both cable and Internet service through CableAmerica, tried to get information on what the acquisition would mean for his account. "After the announcement, I tried calling both companies to find out just what would happen. Would we be able to keep our current e-mail addresses? Would we keep our current station lineup? To these and more questions, the answer was 'We don't know.' I was out of town for an extended period. When I returned my e-mail boxes were full of e-mails telling me that I had until October 18th -- then just 10 days away -- to activate my Cox email account as ALL CableAmerica accounts would cease as of that date. I called Cox and was told that everything would be shut down -- i.e. no forwarding or anything after that date."

Cox reps told the reader they'd started sending out the notice. 30 days in advance of the shutdown deadline. Even if he'd had the additional 20 days to make the transition, though, the reader would have been in a difficult situation because of Cox's decision not to forward CableAmerica e-mails after the deadline. The reader asked Cox why it couldn't forward the old addresses for a year or so -- as would be the normal practice -- but didn't get a very satisfactory explanation.

"All I could ever get out of them was a lame excuse that the CableAmerica equipment and infrastructure was too old and wouldn't allow for forwarding," the reader wrote. "It doesn't ring true since all of the infrastructure for CableAmerica was put in at least five years AFTER Cox put their system in. The worst-case scenario is that they could have allowed us six months to a year to run both email systems so we could do a smooth transfer. Maybe it would have cost them a little more, but they're charging us more, too."